a/n: I know, I know, I'm sorry! I got caught up in finishing my other fics and this one got pushed to the backburner. But, it is my last lingering fic on this site, and therefore, I shall give it much more attention. At least, if you have to reread the story to remember what's going on, it's only two chapters:D
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Three:
Jack stood against the wooden fence that enclosed the festival area. He eyed the princess from across the enclosure. She was talking non-stop with McKay. The geeky scientist most definitely smitten with the beautiful, intelligent woman.
There was just something really bugging Jack about her. When he had explained that Ra was only an alien parasite, impersonating a god to enslave millions of people on many different planets, she took his words as they were, no questioning, no arguing, nothing. And that in itself, really had Jack on alert.
Her father had questioned them, refusing to believe until all of his questions were answered adequately. The men and women of the village questioned them. Everyone, except her. She had just nodded her head and told them they must inform the people. That was it. No denying it, no questioning it, nada, nothing, zip.
It was just….odd. And Jack was going to get to the bottom of it.
He kept watch on the spectacle across the way. Ka'meel was wearing a long white dress that hugged her slender frame in all the right places and showed off her ample breasts appreciatively. The dress flowed down to her ankles, with a long slit going clear up to the middle of her thigh to allow easy walking.
Jack realized how dry his mouth was as he stared at the beautiful princess, and reached down to take a swig from his canteen. Putting the canteen back down, he wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand and continued his watch.
She was grinning at McKay, her eyes bright and shining all the way to Jack's location. McKay was actually charming the princess and this, for some reason, irked O'Neill to no end. Stepping away from the fence, Jack patted his behind, and stomped his way through the many celebrating natives to McKay and Ka'meel.
"Colonel!" Ka'meel greeted with a warm, joyous smile.
Jack felt his heart flip as he took in this beautiful woman up close. "Ka'meel, McKay, having fun?" he dryly asked.
"Ka'meel was just explaining how she created a working computer system. It is very close to our own computers, ours, of course, are much more advanced, but it is very similar to what our computers were like back in the early 80's….."
"Yeah, great, McKay," Jack blew the man off, really not wanting to hear about computers from the 80's. "Ka'meel, may I have a few words with you?"
"Of course, colonel," Ka'meel replied, smiling again at the colonel.
"But….what? We were…." McKay stammered.
"Go…..record data or something, McKay," Jack ordered, trying hard to suppress his smirk. Taking Ka'meel's arm lightly, he led her away from the bumbling scientist.
As they walked away, Ka'meel grinned at the image of the dumbstruck McKay. "Is he always like that?"
"Pretty much," Jack replied, his smirk breaking across his face, McKay's face was quite priceless. "Sorry, if he was bugging you."
"No, it was fine, colonel. It is pleasant to have someone to talk to who understands my work."
Jack, feeling defeated, sighed. "Yeah."
Ka'meel looked up at the downtrodden officer. "It is also nice to get away from him as well. What is it that you wanted to speak of with me?"
Jack stopped walking and looked around. They had left the festival area and were now on the other side of the village, completely alone. He ran a hand through his hair, contemplating whether or not he should confront the beautiful princess or not. Chances were, she would take offense and have them all arrested, or something worse. Or, she could be completely innocent, and he would have wrecked a friendship with this intriguing woman.
Knowing what his job was, and what he had to do, he looked Ka'meel in the eyes and prepared himself for a confrontation. "I want to know what's going on with you?"
Ka'meel looked at the colonel in confusion. "What do you mean?"
Jack squinted his eyes at her. "You accepted that Ra was a false god immediately. Why? No one else believed us at first. We spent all day having to convince them. What do you know?"
Ka'meel's eyes seemed to turn even brighter as she gazed in disbelief up at Jack. "I know nothing."
"You know something, tell me," Jack snarled, the way she was looking at him, so helplessly, made his body react in ways that was really pissing him off.
"I do not know!" she raised her voice. "You accuse me of ill-will because I did not question you?"
"Yes!"
Ka'meel narrowed her eyes at the colonel. "All I have ever known was that I was Ra's chosen. I could not live my life as I wished. I had to treat my body like a temple until the time came that Ra took me as his queen. My first memories before coming here was being told that I was Ra's future queen, and that I must always obey him. To enforce this, they showed me exactly what would happen to me when I became Ra's queen. They led me to a room where an implantation was underway. I was told that the parasite was the god's true form. The woman on the table was screaming and convulsing in fear. Her screams still haunt me to this day. Colonel, your words are a miracle to me. You are my savior. To question your words would make me the biggest fool of all."
Jack, to his credit, looked sheepish following the princess's confession. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
The woman licked her lips, tears very close to falling. "You have nothing to apologize for, colonel. You saved my life the day you killed Ra. For that, I am in your debt. I am yours to do as you please."
Her words, as innocent as they may have been, were received not so innocently in Jack's mind, and once again, he felt a stirring in his groin region. Groaning, he shifted on his feet. This woman was unbelievable!
Her blonde hair and blue eyes were not rare on earth, but there was just something about her that drew Jack to her. He had been divorced for four years now, and there had been women since his wife, but with the work he did at the SGC, they were few and far between. But, Ka'meel, his body was responding to her like it had to no other woman. Then again, it wasn't often that Jack was introduced to a woman's naked body before actually meeting the woman, so that could easily be why he was so taken with her, he reasoned.
"Colonel?" Ka'meel questioned in concern. Jack's eyes had glazed over and he had not responded to her.
"What, sorry," Jack finally came back to reality. "Uh, yeah, sorry," he continued, rubbing a hand over his face.
Ka'meel laughed. "Are you well?"
Jack opened his eyes and peaked at the woman currently laughing at him. Unable to control it, a smile appeared on his face, mirroring the woman across from him. "Yeah, sorry, I got away from myself there."
Ka'meel raised an eyebrow in playfulness. "My wording affected you." Then, as if knowing what Jack's problem was, her eyes darted down to his pants, then slowly back up to his face.
Jack groaned.
Ka'meel laughed.
McKay interrupted.
"There you two are! I've been looking for you, Ka'meel. Your father said the dancing is beginning and you must choose a partner," McKay rambled on hopefully.
"Colonel O'Neill shall be my partner," she stated, grabbing Jack's hand and tugging him along.
Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise, but let the pretty princess lead him away, internally laughing at McKay's, once again, dumbstruck expression.
"The colonel, geez, I was really hoping to get more time with you, do you even know if the colonel can dance? In case you were wondering, I can, my mom taught me when I was young, right before I started piano lessons, I was a very clinical player…."
The festivities continued into the night, and Jack felt a sense of euphoria around the young woman. They danced very closely together and flirted non-stop throughout the evening.
When most of the natives had retired for the night, and the last embers were dying out on the large bonfire, the Tauri men and the beautiful princess were all who remained.
Jack stood with his team, the princess by his side. "Well, Dorothy, I think it's time to call it a night," he commented, smirking at the women next to him.
Ka'meel laughed, her sweet-sounding laughter echoing throughout the sleeping village. "Shall I point you towards the yellow brick road, colonel," Ka'meel teased.
Jack grinned for a second until the princess's words fully processed in his brain. "What did you say?" he ground out.
Everyone looked at the princess in shock.
"What?" she asked, her eyes wide at the looks she was getting.
Jack's face went from merriment to the cold, hardness of a specially-trained officer. "Who are you?"
"I do not understand," Ka'meel replied in fright.
Jack grabbed her by the arm, a little rougher than he should have, and swung her around to face him completely. "The game's over princess! Tell us who the hell you are!"
"I-I do not understand," Ka'meel cried, her eyes filling with unshed tears.
"How do you know the Wizard of Oz?"
"I do not."
"You said the yellow brick road! How do you know about the yellow brick road?"
"I do not know. Ra must have given me the knowledge."
"Bullshit!" Jack roared, his nails digging into the princess's flesh viciously.
"Please, colonel, you are hurting me," she cried.
"Tell me who you are!" Jack barked.
"I am Ka'meel, I am Ra's chosen."
Jack growled and pushed the woman away. He spun around on his heels and scratched his hands through his hair.
"Ra hasn't been on earth in 3,000 years," Daniel's voice of reason sounded out in the tense silence. "Even if he came back, what reason would he have for classic children's movies?"
"Infiltration," Teal'c's strong voice announced.
Jack spun back around to face the large jaffa. "Like what Apophis did with his little war game we discovered a few months back?"
"Indeed," Teal'c replied, nodding his head.
Jack narrowed his eyes at the confused, scared ones of the princess. "So Ra planned on using you as a spy."
"The goa'uld sarcophagus has many functions, O'Neill. It is very likely Ra implanted these memories in Ka'meel for his queen's use after implantation," Teal'c suggested.
"What else do you know?" Jack asked, taking a step towards Ka'meel.
The princess flinched at his advancement, and guilt immediately rushed through Jack's body. "I do not know. I was unaware I knew anything of your world."
"You said earth sounded familiar when we first mentioned it," piped in McKay.
"Earth, not Tauri?" Daniel questioned, his inquiring eyes taking in the frightened face of the princess.
"I've never heard the word, Tauri before?"
"Well, that's odd," Daniel replied. "That is the goa'uld name for our planet. It would seem like you would know that word before the word, earth."
"What do you know about the Wizard of Oz?" Jack asked.
Ka'meel closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I do not know. When you said Dorothy, I thought of a girl in a gingham dress with a basket, a dog, and a yellow brick road. That is all I know."
"Uh, okay," Daniel started. "Let's see what else you know. Politics! Who is the president of the United States."
"I do not know," Ka'meel's soft voice sounded out.
"Okay, something NOT politics," Jack continued. "Who won the Stanley Cup last year?"
"I do not know."
"Do you know what the Stanley Cup is?" Jack asked.
Ka'meel blinked and then locked eyes with Jack. "Hockey?"
Everyone gasped.
"Okay," Jack started up again. "The Simpson's?"
Ka'meel shook her head. "That does not sound familiar at all."
"X-Files?" McKay asked.
Ka'meel shook her head again. "I am sorry, no."
"MacGyver?" Ferretti asked, receiving a glare from O'Neill. "What? She knows the Wizard of Oz!"
"I'm sorry," she answered.
"Star Wars," Teal'c spoke in his strong voice.
Ka'meel's eyes widened. "Han Solo, Chewbacca, R2-D2."
"Oh, sure! Star Wars she knows!" Jack exasperated, flinging his arms around.
"But, what is the point of knowing movies that are more than twenty years old? It makes no sense!" Daniel replied. "What could Ra possibly gain from this knowledge?"
"Infiltration, like Teal'c said," Jack replied. "She knows pop culture. He was obviously planning on having her go to earth."
"But, she knows nothing current."
"It may have been many years ago that Ra returned to earth," Teal'c told them.
Jack shrugged and looked at Daniel. "That would explain why she doesn't know anything current."
Daniel nodded. "I wonder if the Tok'ra know anything about this?"
Jack laughed in distaste. "I wouldn't be surprised if they did!"
"I was created merely to spy on your planet?" Ka'meel softly asked.
Everyone turned their attention to the small form of the princess, who seemed to have retreated into herself during their attack.
"Ra didn't create you, Ka'meel. To our knowledge, the goa'uld do not possess that kind of technology," Daniel said, then looked over at Teal'c for confirmation.
"They do not," Teal'c affirmed.
"It's more than likely Ra kidnapped you from your home planet and erased your memory," Jack softly told the quivering princess. "It's what they do. Daniel's wife was made into a goa'uld that way."
Ka'meel's sympathetic eyes shot to the young archaeologist.
Daniel nodded his head in the affirmative, then lowered it, thoughts of Sha're flooding his mind.
"Do they always erase the host's memories?" Ka'meel asked curiously.
"No, you're the only one we know of," Jack replied. "Maybe so he could fill it with earth knowledge."
"Then why was the knowledge suppressed?" she asked.
Everyone looked at the princess as they contemplated her question.
"I don't know. Teal'c?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow at the jaffa.
"I am unaware of the reasoning in erasing Ka'meel's memories. The sarcophagus generally uses the memories to manipulate the mind, implanting false-memories that are perceived as real. This was the method Apophis used on my son, Ry'ac."
"Maybe her memories weren't necessary, so he just erased them all. Made a clean slate if you will, then loaded her sub-conscious with earth knowledge," Jack suggested.
"But, like Ka'meel said, why suppress them?" Daniel asked.
"Perhaps Ra did not suppress them. Perhaps it was she who suppressed them," Teal'c offered.
Jack turned back to Ka'meel, her eyes showing her bafflement clearly.
"Are you suggesting Ra gave me the knowledge of earth and my own mind suppressed it?" she asked.
Teal'c nodded. "It is possible."
"Actually, it is possible," McKay cut in. "When I was working on my doctoral, I took a few courses in psychology, and the brain will shut out information it can't comprehend…."
This time it was Ka'meel who cut off Rodney. "So, even though my entire memory was erased, my mind still refused to acknowledge the information Ra gave me?"
"It is either that, or Ra erased your memories, but those that remained in your subconscious are resurfacing," Teal'c stoically announced.
"How would she have information about earth culture?" Jack asked in disbelief.
It was then that Daniel stood up, his hands flapping around him. "Ooh! Ooh! That's it! The colonel! They're her memories!"
Everyone looked at Daniel like he was crazy.
Daniel turned to Jack. "Jack! The colonel and his daughter!" he pointed at Ka'meel. "They're her memories! Ra didn't implant them! He tried to erase them!" By now, Daniel was jumping up and down in excitement over figuring out the missing pieces to the puzzle. Everyone looked at Daniel, a little fearful of his flapping arms and jubilant body motions.
Jack, on the other hand, turned to Ka'meel. Could Daniel be right? Was this the missing teenager? Was Kar'men the colonel? Ooh, he was so going to get a pay raise out of this!
